Coffee Diary 28/9/20

[Zetheros]

Hey Exanimates,

Madoc had a bit of a family emergency this week and wasn't able to put as much work in as usual, but he did manage to squeeze enough coding time in to actually get the new GI system up and running. This doesn't mean everything is 100% complete and ready to ship, but all the important stuff works, and we have it running smoothly on massive maps with 100s of light sources. It's quite exciting and a relief to see it all working, as until now it was a very large amount of complex code that hadn't been tested.

At this point it's really all bits and bobs, and largely wrapping up the new renderer as a whole. There's a few fringe cases and effects that need to be ported over, but the new renderer is much easier to work with. Some high level optimisations need to be finalised, and now that the renderer can support all game content, we can get on with patching or updating various assets and materials.

We're hoping to power through these last bits fairly quickly, as individually nothing is very difficult or complex. Maybe we can also sneak in a video of the new renderer in action soon. Over on our Discord some people suggested we could also put the new renderer on the beta branch before the full update is ready, which we're sure many would appreciate and it could help us with testing it too. It seems like quite a good idea so it's looking quite likely that we'll do it.

Have a great week!
-the BM team

 

[ssssssix]

I've been following this for a while and decided to make an account - just wanted to make you know that im currently studying Testing, i know about documentation and can make a well elaborated doc if it helps the team

Really hoping this game is finished ASAP, although i know theres a lot to do yet.

Have a great week too!

 

[berrycatblue]

Hey Zethernos!

I just got into this game and have already put 53.9 hours into it on steam. (Actual playtime might be lower because I tend to have it running while I'm working, but its safe to say I've put a lot into the game so far.)

I'm excited for so many of the features you guys have planned, and I keep thinking of features I'd like to see as well!


1. Like a lot of us, I'm hyped for multiplayer! I have a friend who likely wont get into the game until its added, and I'm excited to eventually be able to play this with him. I know you probably don't wanna put a date on the update, for various reasons, but is this something we can expect relatively soon? Also, will multiplayer be added to the story mode, or will it be exclusively Arena mode? I'd be excited to play with both forms, and I'd understand if it came to arena first, just to test it out, but ultimately I would be super excited to be able to play through the dungeon in multiplayer.

2. I keep seeing all these miscellaneous items in the dungeon, wishing I could do something more with them. Will there be a form of crafting or will there be some added minor uses for some of the random items you can pick up? Like, for example, the hourglass, or charcoal, or something.

3. I really wish I could name keys! That way, once I've figured out what a key is used for, I can name it, and then it'll be easier to differentiate my collection of keys from each other. That or I can note which floor I found a key on.

4. Sort of an addendum to #3, I think it would be very useful to be able to use charcoal or maybe an inkpen and inkwell to write on maps you pick up, and add names to locations or fill out the water blotted parts of the map that make it difficult to read. It would also be nice if you could pick up pieces of blank parchment and use it to keep a self-made map until you find your own map!

5. I saw this suggested as well, somewhere else, don't remember where, but a system to be able to pick up and hold an item, like a ladder or plank of wood that doesnt fit in your inventory, and walk somewhere before having to put it down, would be rather useful for systems like the lever puzzle in floor 1 or other puzzles I have yet to find or you guys have yet to implement. The current system of "drag the item from one side of you to as far as it goes on the other side, then walk past it, then drag it again, then walk past it, then drag it again" is admittedly rather tedious so I'd like to see some kind of future mechanic there that makes it a little easier.

6. I'm loving the Dual Wielding skill, but I personally feel it lacks functionality in that the overhead swing and stab only use the primary weapon (this is especially odd because I'm more likely to want to stab with a sword, but overhead with a mace, so if I dual wield a sword and mace I have to decide which functionality I want to miss out on.) I also wish there was some way to swing with both weapons instead of just one, to go for a more aggressive and reckless approach and give up some of the defensiveness having the 'other hand defend while I attack' gives.


Overall this game makes me so happy, the combat feels so good, the armor feels amazing, I am loving the game and the dev logs make me so excited for future updates. I believe you guys have an amazing game concept on your hands and I hope once you are finished it gets a lot of attention, because it deserves it. Love you guys, keep up the good work!

 

[Jimmini]

[...]

1. Multiplayer will feature both PvP and co-op, both for arena and story mode, but like you said the first iteration will probably be arena only. It's not considered a requirement for fully releasing the game, but perhaps it will still be added before then. They already have a detailed plan for its implementation.

2. You won't be able to craft weapons, armor or anything like that, but there will be alchemy for which you'll be able to use various items. Other than that, again just as you said, items will generally be made more interactive on an individual basis.

3. Key rings will likely be added with which the right key would automatically be used for doors.

4. Maybe someday...

5. Haven't heard any specific plans for that, but I would also greatly welcome such a feature. As a workaround, you can move while holding something if you're in combat mode (hold ctrl for cursor interaction mode).

6. There will likely be a feature added that will allow you to switch your lead foot in combat, which also changes which weapon you do thrusts of overheads with.

 

[berrycatblue]

[...]

1. Oh, cool! Thanks for that info! I greatly appreciate it. I look forward to any and all updates, but I'm most excited for multiplayer.

2. This is mostly what I meant anyway! I wouldn't want to be able to craft weapons and armor, I like having to find that stuff.

3. This sounds good, but I would still like to be able to name them or attach a note to them or something. That way I can also note whether or not I've actually discovered the key's use or not.

4.

5. I'll have to try this! I didn't know it was an option.

6. Ooh, that would be nice! And I imagine it would be great, albeit greatly underused, kind of like how I feel the crouch is. I like the crouch a lot, I use it often when fighting a shielded enemy to curve my swings from the right down under the shield to chop at the opponent's leg. But I noticed a lot of video's on this game that I've seen don't mention that technique, I had to come up with it on my own.

 

[Billy]

Now that the lighting system is working with lots of sources, do you think we might be able to light candles in the future? It would be a very useful feature for newer players to avoid getting lost and would make the world feel more natural. I also enjoy redecorating rooms once I've explored all the levels and I think candles would look nice.

 

[berrycatblue]

As a slightly similar request, I know there are the helmets of night vision and all, but it would be nice if there was a lantern or something we could find later on that we could hang from our characters belt or something, eliminating the need to use up a shield hand OR a helmet slot for vision.

 

[Jimmini]

But I noticed a lot of video's on this game that I've seen don't mention that technique, I had to come up with it on my own.

I guess that's because crouch is still very much work in progress. NPCs neither use it nor can defend against it, so it's considered more of an "exploit" right now. It will either get improved or completely removed at some point.

eliminating the need to use up a shield hand OR a helmet slot for vision.

Don't forget you can also have torchbearer Derrin. There were talks about making him better at it too.

Now that the lighting system is working with lots of sources, do you think we might be able to light candles in the future?

From what I remember, they do want to add that at some point.

 

[Kunio]

I'm a Japanese player.
I use a translation site, so I'm sure this will be poorly written.

I've been playing for about 100 hours now, fascinated by the extremely fun combat, something I've never experienced in any other game.

Recently I noticed the forums and read this Coffee Diary.
I'm very excited about the updates and future plans for the game.

I'm looking forward to seeing you guys continue to make great things.

 

[Madoc]

...

Hello, and pretty good first post.

Jimmini basically covered it, as usual, but I can answer some things bit more specifically.

3 seems like a nice simple feature on the surface, but it actually gets pretty complicated when you consider the implications. If you changed an item's description to something specific to your character, then you'd end up having to track every character's subjective description of every item. It would be nice, and we will realistically need to track some kind of relationship between characters and objects, or "things", but it becomes a small part of a complex system. Food for thought.

4 would be nice too. This is one of those things we might eventually get round to doing, but as it is we have too many more important things to do to give it too much thought, as well as a huge list of other nice if less crucial features.

5 is something we'll definitely look into before too long, and we've already experimented with some approaches. Interacting with physics objects while providing decent controls is a very difficult problem that tends to be underestimated. It will probably take quite a lot experimenting and testing to arrive at something that isn't riddled with problems and good enough to put in game.

 

[Madoc]

Now that the lighting system is working with lots of sources, do you think we might be able to light candles in the future? It would be a very useful feature for newer players to avoid getting lost and would make the world feel more natural. I also enjoy redecorating rooms once I've explored all the levels and I think candles would look nice.

Maybe. It is something we're looking into. The new GI system allows us to do some reasonably convincing lighting without actually using any light sources, so essentially for free.

This is a bit of a crappy WIP screenshot, and not exactly a candle, but hopefully it gives the idea.

 

[Melanoc3tus]

Hello, and pretty good first post.

Jimmini basically covered it, as usual, but I can answer some things bit more specifically.

3 seems like a nice simple feature on the surface, but it actually gets pretty complicated when you consider the implications. If you changed an item's description to something specific to your character, then you'd end up having to track every character's subjective description of every item. It would be nice, and we will realistically need to track some kind of relationship between characters and objects, or "things", but it becomes a small part of a complex system. Food for thought.

4 would be nice too. This is one of those things we might eventually get round to doing, but as it is we have too many more important things to do to give it too much thought, as well as a huge list of other nice if less crucial features.

5 is something we'll definitely look into before too long, and we've already experimented with some approaches. Interacting with physics objects while providing decent controls is a very difficult problem that tends to be underestimated. It will probably take quite a lot experimenting and testing to arrive at something that isn't riddled with problems and good enough to put in game.

Here, have another:

5 seems like a rather difficult one, but judging by Two Minute Papers it is within the realm of the possible, and I'm confident that you'd get to it at some point or another. Of course, time is the real barrier, not possibility. Keep up the good work! Who knows, their might even be a Mac port by 2025.